Its kind of sad that this needs to be pointed out. And I don't even mean this from a pure consumer perspective. Taking a marketing course, first thing you are taught is that you need to understand the market and what people want, then you produce a customer-oriented strategy to deliver what your customers want, you then put it into practice, and then you build relationships with your customers by listening to them and providing value to them, and only once you've got this great relationship that you've built with customers, by giving them a lot of value and listening to them, do you start trying to take value from them by getting them to buy your products. You also don't centre your marketing around your products, you centre your products and your marketing around your audience. If your customers don't want red scarves, you don't make red scarves and try to trick them into buying them, you ask them what they want, make that, and sell them that.
To be fair, I can also see why this would be harder in the games industry. Devs have a personal stake in their games, and we decry creating games by committee for corporate interests, instead praising games that are made purely by devs. Thing is, this is bad, because this then means that devs will make what they want to make, and its up to marketing to try and sell this to consumers, rather than marketing listening to consumers, telling devs what consumers want, devs making that product, and marketers selling it to consumers.
A whole lot of better marketing is needed in the games industry. Amusingly enough, CDPR are doing it right. They create value, and build relationships with their customers. They sell their games, and advertise DLC and such, but its done in a way that's ok by most gamers, and its done to give us value - from memory the announcement of New Game+ for the Witcher mentioned it was a much asked for feature, which means maybe they had other plans for DLC 16, but instead listened to players. They've given us what we want, and now, when Blood and Stone or W/E comes out, we'll buy it in support of our relationship with them, and because we believe we'll gain value from it.
Most other companies go the wrong way about it, trying to tailor their games to statistics, rather than actually interacting with the market they're a part of. That, I feel, is slowly changing, but it is a little sad that its taking so long for what is, really, and intuitive and mutually beneficial strategy to adopt.
To be fair, I can also see why this would be harder in the games industry. Devs have a personal stake in their games, and we decry creating games by committee for corporate interests, instead praising games that are made purely by devs. Thing is, this is bad, because this then means that devs will make what they want to make, and its up to marketing to try and sell this to consumers, rather than marketing listening to consumers, telling devs what consumers want, devs making that product, and marketers selling it to consumers.
A whole lot of better marketing is needed in the games industry. Amusingly enough, CDPR are doing it right. They create value, and build relationships with their customers. They sell their games, and advertise DLC and such, but its done in a way that's ok by most gamers, and its done to give us value - from memory the announcement of New Game+ for the Witcher mentioned it was a much asked for feature, which means maybe they had other plans for DLC 16, but instead listened to players. They've given us what we want, and now, when Blood and Stone or W/E comes out, we'll buy it in support of our relationship with them, and because we believe we'll gain value from it.
Most other companies go the wrong way about it, trying to tailor their games to statistics, rather than actually interacting with the market they're a part of. That, I feel, is slowly changing, but it is a little sad that its taking so long for what is, really, and intuitive and mutually beneficial strategy to adopt.
